Southbound

Finally out on the trains! Early start, had to rush to get to the station but got there in good time. We headed south, first stop Åsarna. I’m not going to work this part of the line but it was nice to see it and to be aware what it is like. Some stops in the middle of the woods to look at blästerugn, enjoyed jumping out of the train in the forest.

End of the line was Mora. The track goes down to Kristinehamn but is in to bad shape to use most of it, so from here on the trip continued by bus. Stopped by a really cool museum in Lesjöfors with random old things from the area and the world in general mixed together in an interesting way, really hard to explain you really have too see it. The all the way down to Kristinehamn and then back to Mora.

Got to practice a bit of guiding with a microphone, think it went quite well but need to work on my phase, in particular in German and English. Stayed in a very nice Hotel in Mora, enjoyed the pool after a long day. And of course a beer afterwards, this time most of my co-workers joined in, and we had a good time. Getting to know them better, and it’s a really nice team. Most of them are new this year, just as I am.

And yeah it was my birthday today.

Defibrillators and dolls on fire

A long day but some got to try out some cool things. First CPR, useful haven’t done that for quite a few years. Also got to try out how to use defibrillator, which I never done before. General first aid and related information all good and presented in a interesting way. After lunch also fire training, got to use a powder extinguisher, only used other types before. Also got some practical experience of how to use a fire blanket, on a doll, slightly surreal but fun.  Also enjoyed having all the classes in a small yellow in between two tracks.

Some dinner in the maintenance workers lunch room and then back to the conference room for some track safety training. Useful information mixed with entertaining anecdotes.

Headed to Bishops for a beer afterwards, only the people staying at the hotel were strong enough to join. BTW, the hotel is called Älgen, the Moose, and is quite good, even if looks sketchy on the outside.

And so it begins, the adventure will finally start.

A few very exciting but also exhausting days have passed. On Sunday evening I took the night train north, for the beginning of my summer long experience. Always found it hard to sleep on the train, even when, as I did this time, have a bed. But at the same time it is somehow soothing to watch the night landscape pass by, as the rails make their noise and the person above quitely snores. Enjoyable in many senses but also not a good way to arrive rested.

Arrived early in Östersund, caught the first glimpse of the Inlandsbanan trains as we entered the station. It look shiny and exciting as it stood there in the early morning light. Decided to splurge on a hotel breakfast while the time passed. Then walked over to the train sheds and met up with some of my new colleagues. As we entered the shed we passed by the trains inside, they looked enormous.

Training week started then. Slight overload of information, all interesting, but we have limited time to cram it all in before the season begins. Endless amounts of paper, but really cool stuff. Got too meet most people in the company and they all seem incredibly nice. But very tired after a long day.

But staying in a hotel with some new nice people, you can’t just go straight to bed, no matter how tired you are. So we went to the hotel Bar, had a beer and good conversation, trying to get to grips with the entire day. And soon some very much needed sleep.

Inlandsbanan – där tid finns

Inlandsbanan – där tid finns.

A New Start

So after an immense blogging hiatus, I’m back. The main reason I stopped blogging was that it didn’t feel like anything worth writing about was going on. Don’t get me wrong, the past year has been good, but not very exciting. I really enjoyed teaching Home Economics for a year, it was a challenge at times and learnt lots from the experience. But as the term was coming towards an end I felt that a change was desperately needed, simply being back home for too long takes its toll. A nice flat, enough money to get around and friends to hang out with, but no adventure.

Earlier this year I got an email from Joanna Ö, it was a job advert for a train line I had previously talked about. You might not be aware but for a long time trains have been of interest to me, by no means a train geek, I still find them interesting. So an application was written and sent, and quite some time passed. The suddenly I received a phone call from a recruitment agency tasked with evaluating applicants for the job, and had thorough phone interview with them. That raised my hopes and the excitement felt was immense, it sounded perfect for me. Was later invited to a interview in Stockholm and the next week was invited to up Östersund to have an interview with Inlandsbanan AB. Östersund is about 20 hours away from Helsingborg by train, the interview lasted a little more than an hour, but it just kept my excitement growing.

About a week later I received the final phone call, the job was mine, and the company placed me in Gällivare on the northernmost point of the line for the summer. Accepted as soon as possible and will start working in early June. Next week I’m going up to Östersund for a training week and are looking forward to it immensely.

Intend to do fairly regular updates on the blog over the summer and hope that some people are interested in reading it.

things

Keeping my blog updated seems to be impossible. It is a combination of not much exciting happening and a complete lack of inspiration. From Friday I will be unemployed again as my temp job finishes. Not all that bad since it is time for me to move on to something else. So have applied for a few jobs and more will come in the next few days. Also working on a few business ideas, but nothing is really there yet.

 

Playing around with an alternative to my blog… check it out:

parboman on 12seconds.tv

another trip

Doesn’t seem like I manage to update this properly. Will try to do better as always. Heading over to Scotland for about ten days tomorrow. Finally some time off work. Otherwise things are moving along.

 

Midsummer was on friday and spent the day at my sisters boat with Carl and Gustav. Afterwards we headed over to my place, made some food and enjoyed ourselves. Simply a superb day. 

Looking into some really cool opportunities for the fall, but will se what actually happens. Lots more later.

Summerstorm

The last two weeks have been almost like peak summer here in Sweden. This afternoon it clouded up again and it now has this nice feeling of a summerstorm coming. 

 

Have had some great times these last few weeks, meeting up with friends and enjoying myself. Managed to run the local spring running competition (named springtime, spring means run in Swedish so the name i almost funny), a 10 km run which took me slightly more than an hour. No good time for someone how exercises regularly but since it was only the second time I ever run that distance it is okay. Trying to get myself into shape, but it’s a long way left to go. 

 

Move between great happiness and mild despair, really need to get one with something. Can probably continue working at school for the summer, but soon something different has to happen. Applying for a few new jobs but somewhat lacking in inspiration on what can be interesting. But hopefully things will start to make more sense soon. 

Podcast

Was playing around with Garageband and made a test podcast. This could be a fun way to do the blog once in a while or maybe there are other users. Have some temporary hosting problems so for now it can be found here. Just clich on the document icon. 

A billion ideas

After some time where I had basically no inspiration and when life felt incredibly dull, things have now turned around. I have a billion ideas of things I want to do and set up, including various business ideas in very different stages and a Swedish (or southern Swedish) version of SIE. Just going to go ahead to try a few things out and see what has real traction and then decide what to put my complete focus on. 

Also got booked for a full time job at a school until mid june, which means that I will have stable enough income to survive even if I don’t get a full time job when the contract ends. Another plus is that I don’t have to jumped around in different classes with different kids all the time. Just one simple place for about 8 weeks. Might mean that I won’t be able to go ahead with some other things just yet, but it is probably wise to spend some extended time thinking, planning ahead and get in contact with people that might be able to help me.

 

So life is great,

 

Pär Boman